Once I got my tent set up in the park, the feeling of panic I had felt back in the hotel 36 hours earlier subsided, and now I calmly lay back in the familiar grass, my feet casually propped up against the tree. As the light fell, people came out of their houses to...
The next morning, I woke up knowing that I was going to have to do whatever it took to work my foot back into shape. So I hobbled downstairs to breakfast and decided to come up with a plan. Before sitting down to eat, though, I walked a couple laps around the parking...
The next morning I pulled on my pack and walked out of the lobby of the Thermal Springs Hotel. I started to cross the road to begin walking as usual, but stopped when I spied the hotel’s breakfast buffet. I had been in such a hurry to get back on the road that I was...
Saturday, 8 September 2012 About 3 hours out of Horsunlu, I started the climb out of the Menderes River Valley. The predictable pattern of farm after farm began to end, and the mile after mile of flat road began to give way to gently-rolling hills. About 3 p.m. I was...
About seven hours after I left Nazilli, I walked into Horsunlu, a small village with a population of around 2,000 people. Horsunlu is at the eastern edge of the Menderes River Valley. The river valley at that time of year is very beautiful. Figs and other crops are...
On the morning of my seventh day on the road, I walked out of Nazilli and stopped at a tea garden near the village of Hamzali to top off my water supply. The tea garden was tended by a hyperactive 15-year old named Halil who couldn’t stop talking about how fast his...
